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Virginia state lawmaker and onetime candidate for governor Creigh Deeds suffered serious injuries after being stabbed in the head and upper torso several times inside his home Tuesday, police said.

Deeds, 55, was flown from his home in Bath County and is being treated at UVA Hospital in Charlottesville. The hospital says he is in critical condition.

Virginia State Police Public Relations Manager Corinne Geller said when authorities arrived at Deeds’ Millboro home, they also found his 24-year-old son, Gus, suffering injuries from a life-threatening gunshot wound. He later died at the scene, Geller said.

Virginia and national Democratic sources who spoke to Fox News cited Virginia law enforcement authorities as alleging that Gus Deeds stabbed his father before shooting himself.

Police say they are still searching for a motive, but they are not looking for any suspects at this point.

Geller said authorities responded to the home at 7:25 a.m. local time after receiving a 911 call, but she did not disclose the source of the call. The Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation's Salem Field Office is still investigating the scene.

Deeds, a former Bath County prosecutor, was elected to the House of Delegates in 1991 and to the state Senate in 2001, in a special election after the death of Emily Couric.

"The senator's son was evaluated under an emergency custody order by mental health professionals on Monday and released, Dennis Cropper, executive director of the Rockbridge County Community Services Board, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The emergency custody order allowed Austin C. "Gus" Deeds to be held as long as four hours to determine whether he should be held longer, up to 72 hours, under a temporary detention order, Cropper said. The son was evaluated by the Rockbridge Area Community Services Board in Lexington. An emergency custody order can be released by any magistrate.

Cropper said no psychiatric bed could be located across a wide area of western Virginia and the son was released."

"Today, [the American voter] chooses his rulers as he buys bootleg whiskey, never knowing precisely what he is getting, only certain that it is not what it pretends to be." - H.L. Mencken